Health IT Groups Form Global Consortium for eHealth Interoperability

At the ONC Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., HIMSS, HL7 International and IHE International announced the formation of the Global Consortium for eHealth Interoperability. The goal is to convene stakeholders from around the world to share validated, scalable interoperability best practices at the point of care.

The organizations said the consortium would convene at HIMSS20 in Orlando.

The consortium will share lessons learned, best practices, adoption metrics and expert guidance to drive adoption of standards-based health IT interoperability. These efforts will turn policy-based interoperability roadmaps and vision into reality, the consortium said.

The consortium will also share use cases, implementation guides, and test plans to achieve rapid, coordinated and efficient deployment of next-generation API-based interoperability standards that benefit the entire global healthcare community.

The consortium said it would provide a venue to convene key actors from across the care continuum to efficiently share use cases and implementation guide development among different participants. Input sessions will be held throughout the year at the HIMSS Global Health Conference and other broadly attended, regional healthcare and health information and technology events to share ways to support internal roadmaps and manage interoperability strategy planning.

The consortium will enhance health systems’ and clinicians’ own real-world interoperability testing initiatives through testing tool guidance and live event participation like connectathons.